


Osteal

by venvea



Category: Bandom, Hollywood Undead (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, ED TW, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, References to Depression, Romantic Friendship, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting, i guess it could also pass as implied ragavez/funny 3 tears (totally up to your interpretation), lowkey a vent fic yikes, restrictive anorexia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venvea/pseuds/venvea
Summary: He breathes and he can feel his ribs pressing against his skin, can feel every single bump and dip of them, but he can barely feel his heart beating.It’s such a satisfying way to disappear, really, to watch himself waste away.
Relationships: Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man & Daniel Murillo | Danny, Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man & Jordon Terrell | Charlie Scene, Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man & Jorel Decker | J-Dog, Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man & Vanessa Decker, Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man/Daniel Murillo | Danny, Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man/Jorel Decker | J-Dog, George Ragan | Johnny 3 Tears & Dylan Alvarez | Funny Man, Implied Jorel Decker | J-Dog/Vanessa Decker, if you squint:
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Osteal

**Author's Note:**

> in case you didn't read the tags; this fic deals with eating disorders. if you're not comfortable with such topics, i'd recommend to leave now and read something nice and fluffy.
> 
> as the tags say, romantic relationships aren't the main focus of this fanfic. i DID write it with implied funny-dog in mind, but it got lost somewhere along the way, so now, with all the moments dylan shares with the other members, it could also be implied danny/funny, johnny/funny (maybe? if you want it to be!) or none of these ships. it's really up to you how you interpret this side of the story.

* * *

** Osteal (adjective) **

** /'ɒstɪəl/ **

Resembling skeleton; composed of bones; _bony._

* * *

There is something strangely satisfying about the way his fingers grow thinner and thinner with each passing week. The bits of fat that once padded around them, the flaps of skin in the dip between each finger, the flesh of his palm; they all dissolve, leaving behind nothing but pale bones, making his tattoos look like some kind of nasty scars and bruises.

Jutting kneecaps and scapulae and iliac crests, sharp elbows, prominent cheekbones and defined collarbones. Wrists and ankles so thin they look like they might just _snap_ in the wind.

He tries not to think about it too much, at least not when he's with the others. He drinks coffee with Danny in the morning, and helps Jordon choose between all different kinds of his favorite cereals, and laughs with Jorel about his odd vegan snacks, and when George asks, he sits down to another pizza he ordered for dinner instead of making one. More often than not he hides the empty plate with the sleeves of his sweater, and washes the clean dish when the others are gone.

It’s a hard way to disappear. It’s so, so slow and so, so long, and somedays he breaks down crying, unable to feel his own hands. He stares at them sometimes, counts all the knuckles, then counts them again (And again, and again, and then he cries when he starts messing up, and counts them again—), touches his face, folds them against his chest where he should feel his sternum. He doesn't. But that's okay; he doesn't feel much lately anyway.

Because he breathes and he can feel his ribs pressing against his skin, can feel every single bump and dip of them — but he can barely feel his heart beating. He finds it amusing, really. How he can feel so much more than the others, but, at the same time, so much less. It drives him crazy. 

He considers shaving his head when one day he runs his fingers through his brown locks and pulls out a handful of thin hair.

It's a _different_ way to disappear, he thinks. And it's so unique in its own twisted beauty.

The hollow of his stomach doesn’t hurt anymore, it's long past that point. He eats on occasion, frozen fruit, rice cakes or nuts, maybe a small cookie, depending on who offers it. It's the only thing on his mind until he can escape, until he can finally shove his thin fingers down his throat and regurgitate.

It’s such a satisfying way to disappear, really, to watch himself slowly waste away.

* * *

When it first starts, he hardly realizes what he's doing. It's easy enough to skip lunch, with how busy the band is writing and recording music and touring. Breakfast becomes a sporadic event and eventually he phases out his weekly little grocery shopping with Daniel, seeing no need to buy food that will just go bad if the others don't eat it instead of him. He saves money now that he isn't buying more food and he invests in a scale, which he hides in his suitcase and forgets about for the first two weeks of their tour.

He doesn't realize it's a problem yet. It becomes normal, so easy; skipping meals, lying to his friends and then washing dishes that aren't his own. It doesn't feel like a bad thing. If anything, it makes him feel better, to have control over something. He gets lightheaded and dizzy but he attributes it to being tired because of the shows. His stomach growls sometimes and so he will nibble on what he can find, usually the leftovers in the small fridge that typically belong to George and have the added bonus of pissing him off. He admits to himself it might be a little dangerous when one day he sits down for a meal consisting of some chinese take out Jordon bought, and can't even make it halfway through before feeling like throwing up.

Eventually that begins to feel normal as well.

He becomes so good at lying, sometimes he believes his own words when he assures Daniel that he's eaten already. It scares him some days, how easy it is for the others to believe anything he says. He doesn't even put that much effort into it anymore, and it still works. Because he's that good at hiding. And it scares him.

When Dylan steps on the scale for the first time since he bought it, he notes that there is a difference of seven pounds. It's not a big change, not quite what he wants yet, but it's enough to know that whatever he is doing is working.

He cuts out dinner that week and _normal_ begins to feel very much like an empty stomach and steadily shrinking numbers written on the inside of his wrist.

* * *

Some days are worse than the others.

Some days, he's having fun with his friends when it hits. Some days, he's just talking and laughing and jamming out to his favorite songs with his favorite people when suddenly all he can think about is how much better it would be if he weren't here. How much better it would be for everyone if he just finally disappeared.

It's all too much. He's caught in the web of his own lies, every new one adding to the weight of his remorse. He tries not to think about it — he drank his coffee with Danny in the morning, and helped Jordon choose cereal in the supermarket, and joked about Jorel's fun vegan snacks, and then washed a clean plate after dinner. But when he's alone, lying down in his bunk bed while the others are long asleep, stomach empty for days now, he can't help but think about how we're all made of numbers.

Mathematics has control of the universe. We are percentages, statistics, the years we have lived, the rise and fall of a chart, the marks on a tape measure. (He is the number on the scale, the amount of calories he eats, the size of clothes he wears).

He picks his hoodies two times too big because he feels small inside the draping fabric. He tears off the tags and throws them away with the uneaten sandwiches he takes from George for appearances. He hasn’t bought new jeans in what feels like ages — his old ones don’t fit anymore, and he has to wear a belt all the time, but he doesn’t really mind. He feels small. And for the first time in years he has something to be proud of.

_Ten pounds down._

He guzzles water so the doctor doesn’t catch on when he goes in with a cold (Even though he’s _always_ cold, _always_ freezing, because even the hoodies aren't enough to warm him up anymore).

_Twenty pounds down._

The alcohol he drinks at their weekly little bus party sinks into his veins and he can feel every single calorie from the mixer, but that’s fine; he’ll just drink enough that he’ll throw it all up later.

_Thirty pounds down._

Vanessa knows. Or at least Dylan thinks she knows. At first he doesn't understand why she suddenly starts hanging out with him more, always staying in the bus with him instead of going out with Jorel. But he understands the pleading, sad look in her eyes when she asks if he'd like to eat something with her. She never says anything that should ever make him think she knows, but he still understands. He doesn't want to hate her for that, but admits that once she goes back home, the whole thing becomes much easier.

_Forty pounds down._

He marks the calories in a notebook in his back pocket, and when he exceeds six hundred, it’s a bad day. He punishes himself by missing dinner and the others don’t question it when he walks in and goes straight to his bunk, where he wraps himself in loose sleeves and presses his palms to his hips where he can feel the nonexistent flab swelling as his brain screams _you fucked up again, you ugly shit._ Then six hundred becomes five hundred, four hundred, then it suddenly drops to two hundred. He hesitates for a moment at one hundred, but then, eventually, fifty calories is too much.

After all, he is worth nothing more than the amount of calories he eats, the size of clothes he wears, the number on the scale, getting smaller, losing value. And the closer the needle moves towards zero, the better he feels.

_He’ll be just as empty as that hollow circle one day._

* * *

The first time he passes out, they're doing a sound check for their next show. He excuses himself to the bathroom before realizing he doesn't know where it's located. So he stands in the hall and fights the annoying feeling, blinking nervously and trying to make the black spots go away. As he sits on the floor, they swallow his whole vision. He wakes up on ten minutes later with his head pounding and his fingers stained with red substance.

“Hey, where'd you go? You missed Jay falling off the stage, I think he's trying to steal Johnny's band position,” Jordon says before bursting into laughter, and Dylan wonders if Charlie can see the blood slowly staining his beanie or how pale his face looks or how his hoodie is three sizes too big for him despite it fitting perfectly a few months ago. He laughs nervously. Nobody notices.

The third time he passes out, he's in the middle of a conversation with George, in the middle of the tour bus, in the middle of curious glares. When he opens his eyes, he sees Danny's worried expression and he can swear he notices some tears on his cheeks, but doesn't mention it when he lies about the reason he passed out. They believe him even though his eye twitches, his voice shakes and his fingers tangle themselves into his hoodie's drawstrings. And nobody notices.

The next time he passes out, it's during their meet-and-greet. It starts the rumors. Before he knows it, he deletes his Instagram and as he does it, he stops counting, loses track sometime after the fifth time. And he passes out when he's performing on stage, and Jorel drops his guitar to run to him when the music stops and the audience goes quiet. Later, when they're in the bus alone, Danny brings up the fact that _maybe_ it isn't normal. And he notices.

He notices he can wrap his hands around Dylan's thigh, can count every single one of his ribs, could snap both his wrists with his gaze only. Notices how his cheekbones stand out a little too much, how his collarbones are seconds from breaking skin, how his fingers look like they are barely covered with flesh. And he cries. He cries because he should've noticed sooner, because Dylan is _dying_ and he didn't do anything to save him. He brushes his thumb over Dylan's cheekbone, as if afraid the sharp bone might slice his finger open. 

At first, Dylan screams. He screams because his secret is no longer a secret, _because he was so good at hiding for so long_ , _what went wrong?_ Because Danny shouldn't know, and now that he found out, he doesn't really know what to do. He feels defeated, valuable. He's helpless. Then he cries too, and there's nothing but his tears staining Daniel's shirt and quiet sobs echoing through the bus.

* * *

They don’t allow him a scale at the ‘summer camp’, and it’s almost worse than the fact that George had to carry him to the car, Jordon had to hold him down so he didn't jump out of it, and Danny's favourite jacket was wet from Dylan's tears when they had finally arrived. _Almost_. Almost worse that the nurses who stand outside the bathroom door after meals to make sure none of the patients try to purge. He had tried it once. He hadn’t been able to get anything out before the doors slammed open and one of the nurses was on him like Jorel on coffee.

It hadn’t even been one of the nice nurses, which would have been disappointing if it weren’t so fucking awful that they wouldn’t _just leave him be._

“I’m fine,” he says to the therapist.

“You’re fine,” the therapist agrees to make him feel better, even though her words come out sounding more like a question. But he really is fine; he's not like the others. Because when one girl swipes a pencil sharpener and the next day she’s gone, just a bundle of sheets left behind, Dylan knows why the women’s showers are closed when the janitors haul out the bleach. And he's not like her.

He has never been one to self-harm, though the doctors would argue that his eating habits are a form of it. But it isn’t self-harm. He didn't want to hurt himself; he just wanted to disappear. _It isn't self-harm._

Because _he’s fine_.

He is less fine when they finally weigh him and he’s gained a full five pounds. The nurses restrain him as he spits and curses and eventually dissolves into sobs, sinking into a heap on the floor with the scale staring accusingly back at him.

The anxiety makes it hard to keep anything in his stomach, even if he wanted to. They put him on an IV when he passes out with a fever, a liquid diet of nutrients poured straight into his blood. He doesn’t mind that as much. He can't feel it in stomach.

Sometimes Dylan almost wishes that he were dead, that he had succeeded before everyone found out. They weigh him and he sees the scales tip. Higher numbers, higher chance of survival, smaller chance of suicide. Because he doesn’t really want to die anymore, but he can’t keep living like this. The IV itches. They splint his arm down to keep him from scratching it. He focuses on the cold stream of fluids that he can feel in his veins when another needle is inserted into him, and he tries not to hate it. It’s keeping him alive and he doesn’t want to die yet. He doesn’t want to leave the others behind. They don't deserve it.

Scales swinging like pendulums turn to bones in his dreams and he wakes up in a cold sweat, swallowing down air and trying to pull himself together.

Johnny calls, tries to tell him something, but Jordon keeps interrupting the singer to tell another fun story from the studio, and Dylan actually smiles. Their voices alone remind him why he has to keep pushing, and he can't die yet. He has to keep trying. He came for a reason and he won't fail.

The next time they weigh him he inhales through his teeth and fights back the tears.

He won't fail.

* * *

They never told him that he would relapse after they released him.

They mentioned that, _well, it happens_ , covered it in therapy during the healing process, because, after all, everyone relapses. _It’s okay, just keep going. You can’t always be strong._

But that was when he was still at the hospital, and now that he’s finally back, he can’t stop shaking. He flushes the toilet once, twice, three times even though there’s nothing left in the bowl aside from blue-tinted water. His toothbrush is in the trash can. He can’t even stand to look at it now. And the worst part is that his stomach still feels heavy, despite the fact that he knows that it’s empty now. Every pound is a stone in his pocket, pulling him down until he drowns.

He doesn’t move for a long time, simply slumps over on the bathroom floor and curls his fingers into the black rug. That’s how Jorel finds him an hour later.

“Dylan?” Jorel pauses in the doorway and just looks at him. Dylan can’t meet his eyes, still can’t stop shaking. Jorel doesn’t say anything else, just falls to his knees and gathers Dylan into his arms. The silent support makes him burst into tears, and he clutches onto Jorel as his shaking turns into sobs.

Neither of them says a word, even though it’s obvious what had happened. Dylan keeps waiting for the disappointed expression, the harsh words, but they never come. Jorel just rocks him slowly as the tears come seemingly without end. Each time he thinks that he’s calming down, a new wave of self-loathing and pity washes over him, bringing a new round of sobs.

He cries until his eyes are sore and his head hurts and there are no more tears left. He’s a shuddering mess in Jorel's arms and he is acutely aware of every part of himself that has gained weight since he started living with the guitarist, a result of Jordon's hours long rambling about how 'that's the best for him'. That's how he realized that they still don't trust him; of course they don't, of course they don't. He wouldn't trust himself either. He would never get healthy on his own.

Because he’s supposed to be healthy now, isn’t he?

“It's okay, Dylan,” Jorel says softly, running his hand through Dylan's tangled hair. “It’s going to be alright.”

“Okay,” Dylan agrees. Can Jorel even hear him? His voice is hoarse and his throat burns as the word comes out of his mouth.

“Do you believe me?” Jorel asks quietly. Dylan doesn’t respond right away. Jorel's hands are warm and he feels so, so cold, and his own hands still shake.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

And he thinks he really does.

* * *

_Recovery is not a destination_ , Dylan tells himself. It’s a journey and it’s okay if it doesn’t follow a straight upward pattern. It’s a lot of highs and lows, it’s a lot of failure, but it’s also a lot of small successes. Bit by bit he recovers, and even if that chapter of his life never really closes, he has faith where he didn’t before.

“Excuse me, did you eat my fucking cake?” George demands loudly, standing next to the small fridge in their tour bus. Dylan pauses mid-chew to look down at the chocolate cake on his plate, the only thing left after Jordon's birthday party. He knew full well that it wasn't his when he took it, and even with George standing in front of him, Dylan can’t bring himself to feel the slightest bit of remorse. He grins and swallows.

“If it’s any sort of comfort, Johnny, it tastes fucking delicious,” Dylan offers up with a smile. George has a sour expression on his face, but he doesn’t say anything. Dylan takes that moment to shove another forkful of cake into his mouth, and that action makes Johnny's shoulders relax.

“I think I’m gonna start spiking my food with hot sauce, you know?” he warns as he sits next to the Mexican. Dylan just coughs out a laugh around his mouthful of food and George shoots him a fondly irritated look over his newspaper.

The cake really does taste good.

**Author's Note:**

> come chat with me on tumblr, my @ is bl00dy-nose.


End file.
